by tj dell
“I’m not sure. Does your daddy know that is what you want to ask Santa for?” Sandy didn’t think ‘house’ sounded like Cole was just home for a visit. “Maybe you should ask Santa for something else too, just in case. Isn’t there something else you would like?”
“Well I kind of want a mommy, but Daddy says he wants to pick out just the right one—that’s why it is taking so long.”
Sandy had no answer for this. But it gave her a million more questions. Where was Hannah’s mommy? How long had Cole been picking one out? Not that she was thinking of applying for the job. Cole might be drop dead gorgeous and have a daughter that belongs on television, but he was still Cole Pennington. And Cole Pennington had made her life miserable in more ways than one for most of her childhood.
“I like this one!” Hannah was scratching the ear of the littlest puppy, a beagle mix that someone had dropped off last week.
“This guy is only a baby. He won’t be ready for a family for a couple of weeks.”
“Does that mean his birthday will be on Christmas?”
“Well he’s already ten weeks old so…” Sandy saw Hannah tilt her head in a questioning gesture that reminded her of Cole. “Okay, his birthday will be on Christmas.” She agreed.
Hannah grinned. “Perfect! My birthday is on Christmas too. I want Santa to bring me this puppy! You’ll make sure he gets the right one, won’t you Miss Sandy?”
“umm … I’m not sure…”
A buzzing sound came from inside and Sandy was saved from finishing the conversation. Their front door had a loud and sometimes annoying buzzer that could be heard from anywhere when someone came in. “Sandy?” A deep warm voice floated out the back door before Sandy could extricate Hannah from the puppy pile and get back inside.
“Daddy!” Hannah jumped up and rushed inside where she was scooped up into Cole’s arms.
“Hannah!” He yelled back before setting her on her feet. They were like a Christmas card. All smiles and hugs. Sandy felt herself smiling too—it must be contagious. “Did you guys have fun?”
“Yes! Miss Sandy says I can have a puppy for Christmas!”
Cole arched his eyebrows in Sandy’s direction. Heat filled her cheeks. “I…that isn’t exactly… what I said was…” Was she stammering? She definitely should have stayed in bed this morning.
“Amazing.” Cole was staring at her with those beautiful awful laughing eyes of his.
“What is?”
“You still blush just as pretty as I remember.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not blushing. I’ve just been out in the cold that’s all.”
“Come on, Daddy! You have to meet the puppies.” Cole allowed himself to be towed out the back door and Hannah took her time to introduce each of the dogs in the yard. “And this is Jingle Bells.” Hannah threw her tiny arms around the little brown beagle puppy she’d saved for last.
“Jingle Bells?” His question was directed over his shoulder where Sandy was standing.
“That one’s all her. I’ve been calling him Cookie.”
“I don’t know which is worse.” Cole chuckled in a way that made Sandy glad she hadn’t mentioned that Cookie was short for Cookie Monster— she had kind of a theme going.
“He has to have a Christmas name! His birthday is on Christmas.” Hannah stated simply as if that would clear up any confusion.
Sandy shrugged helplessly when Cole questioned her with his eyebrows again. “All right Hannie, we’ll have to talk to Santa Claus first though. Thank Miss Sandy for letting you stay.”
“Thank you! And don’t forget—Jingle Bells likes to have his ears scratched.”
“I’ll try and remember that, and thank you for all your help today.” Sandy smiled down at the little girl. Maybe her morning hadn’t turned out so awful after all.
“Really, thank you Sandy. She was bored stiff following me around all morning.” Cole said when they’d gone back into the lobby and were headed towards the front door. He was reaching for his wallet and before she could stop him he was holding out a twenty dollar bill.”
“Don’t be silly. It was less than an hour.”
Cole simply cocked his head before nodding and slipping the bill into the ‘Guide Dogs for America’ donation jar on the front desk. “I’ll see you soon, Sandy. It would seem that we have some unfinished business to attend to.” With another bone melting smile Cole and his daughter disappeared out the front door and Sandy slouched against a wall. She was exhausted from the effort of not swooning. Please tell me it is just the nostalgia, she begged her heart—there was no answer.
What sort of unfinished business could he possibly think they had together? Sandy was still wondering hours later as she was putting away the last of the day’s paperwork. Maybe he was going to start snapping her bra strap if they ran into each other at the post office, or he could be planning on sneaking up behind her while she was walking and stepping on the back of her sneakers. He must have ruined a ten pairs of her shoes that way they were kids.
“Sandy? You have a visitor!” Amanda called from the lobby. Amanda was one of their volunteers and she’d be caring for the animals in the afternoon.
She told herself it could be anybody. Maybe Allie wanted to catch a movie. But when she rounded the corner into the lobby she couldn’t summon any surprise at seeing Cole’s large body relaxed into one of the vinyl padded benches along the wall. He should have looked ridiculous folded up on the tiny seat with his arm hanging awkwardly over the low back, (the furniture was designed more for easy clean up then for comfort) but Cole was incapable of looking ridiculous. He just looked big and manly and confident in his bigness and man-ness. That was sort of irritating to Sandy in light of the afternoon she’d spent convincing herself that she’d imagined his immense sex appeal. When he first saw her his face lit up. That was immediately followed by crumpled confused looking eyebrows.
“Are you dressed to leave? You were done at 3:00, right?” Cole stood up as he spoke.
“I’m done for the day. What’s wrong with my…” the rest of her retort dissolved on her tongue when she looked down to see the green yoga pants with a stain on one leg and strings unraveling from every seam. “Oh my god!” Mortified, Sandy fled back into her office. Where she quickly pulled on her now clean jeans and then waited with her hand on the door knob trying to muster the courage to open the door. Ten years! Ten years, and she meets Cole Pennington again looking like she’s wearing pajamas from 1985!
“Sandy? Are you okay in there?” Cole’s voice sounded more like he was concerned then like he was laughing at her. If possible that was actually worse.
Sandy opened the door and let him in. “Want to let me in on what that was all about?”
“Fate seems to have a beef with me today.” Cole burst out laughing at her answer. Sandy allowed herself to crack a smile. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” She asked.
“Besides the fact that I am not in the habit of commenting on other people’s wardrobe choices? I figured they were your ‘play clothes’ for being outside with the dogs. Hannah got dirty enough.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Sure, because five year olds aren’t plenty skilled at getting dirty all on their own. Don’t be ridiculous.” Cole’s hand reached out and brushed a few imaginary strands of hair from her face. Why was he so close? Sandy’s heart was racing fast as he approached her. When he stopped moving he was so close that her neck ached with the angle required to look him in the eyes. “Do I make you nervous?” His voice was lower and rougher now.
“Absolutely.” Sandy decided against lying.
Cole chuckled at her. “Good.” He backed up to a more comfortable distance. “So, our unfinished business?”
Sandy stared. Even if her brain hadn’t just suffered some sort of a malfunction she wouldn’t know what he was talking about.
“The dog? Sandy?”
“That’s our unfinished business?”
“What did you think I was ta
lking about?”
“Honestly? I thought you were probably just messing with me.”
“What?” Cole laughed again. “Why on earth would you think that?”
Sandy couldn’t think of a non incriminating answer so she ignored the question. “Jingle Bells? I’m sorry if I mislead Hannah, she caught me off guard.”
“Yeah, she’s good at that. It’s fine though—Santa needed a hint this year anyway. The dog is available?”
“Well, not yet. He can’t be adopted until he’s 12 weeks. We had to guess at his age, but Christmas would be just about as early as we’ll let him leave.”
“Perfect. And you won’t sell him to anyone else right? I tried to talk Hannah into a golden retriever or a german sheppard on the way home, but she is determined.”
“You don’t like Jingle Bells?”
“Well he won’t be much of a guard dog and I’m still going to try and renegotiate the name, but he’ll do. Shall we go meet the newest member of my family?” He waved one arm in front of him gesturing for her to lead the way.
Sandy let herself smile. Cole was a wonderful father. She could probably have made that judgment based on the look of terror in his eyes this morning when Hannah’d wandered off on him, but his easy decision to take in Jingle Bells (or name-to-be-determined) certainly solidified her opinion.
“You are pretty cute.”
It took Sandy a little too long to realize Cole was addressing Jingle Bells and not her. She really had to get a hold of herself. “Have you ever had a dog before? Hannah mentioned you lived in an apartment before.” Sandy slipped into professional mode in an attempt to stop coming across like a sixteen year old with a crush.
“We did. Live in an apartment I mean. I had a dog when I was a kid, but it’s been awhile. He’s going to need a lot of stuff, I bet.” Cole straightened up from where he’d been peering into Jingle Bell’s crate. “What are your plans this afternoon?”
“Why?”
Cole twitched a smile at her. “I think you should take me shopping. Make sure that I’m going to be giving him a good home and all that.”
Well that was at the top of her short list of things not to do today! Why was he being so nice to her? Sandy couldn’t shake the admittedly juvenile feeling that it was a trick. Like any minute he was going to invite her to prom only to throw pig’s blood on her when she showed up. “I can provide you with a list, and I’m sure anyone at the pet store would be happy to help.”
“Well I don’t want anybody’s help, Sandy. I want your help.”
“Okay, I’ll get my purse.” Arg! What was she thinking? If this was a trick she was making it very easy for him.
Sandy Masters. Cole would be kidding himself if didn’t admit that running into Sandy hadn’t been on his mind since he’d made the decision to return home. He had hoped that he would make a better impression than a man that can’t keep track of his own daughter, but he was going to make up for it. Cole used to think of Sandy as the only redeeming characteristic of Pony Valley. Of course that was coming from the brain of a bored restless 18 year old that couldn’t wait to strike out on his own. Now he knew better. As a father he took a much different view of sleepy little towns than he had as a teenage boy. Back then Sandy had been just about the only girl in town that wouldn’t give him the time of day. It used to irk the hell out of him, but the fact that she wasn’t the type to haunt his locker every morning, like some of the other girls, was one of the things he’d liked about her.
Sandy had crossed his mind more than once over the past ten years. He never could seem to call home without finding a way to casually ask his mother how she was doing. He’d known she went away to college, and that she’d come home shortly after graduation and taken the job running the animal shelter. His mom thought she’d been seeing someone pretty seriously a few years ago, but he’d left town.
Even knowing she worked at the animal shelter hadn’t kept running into her from shocking him. He thought that his memory of her had to have been exaggerated by his teenage hormones, but she still had the ability to put a shock of awareness straight through him on sight. And that blush! Oh, he had lived for the moments he could see her blush back in high school. Cole supposed he should be glad that Hannah had been there to play chaperone when he saw her turning pink again, or there is no telling what he would have done. The second time— when they were alone in her office he’d barely been able to stop himself from kissing her. Not that he didn’t intend to kiss her, and soon, but he wanted to do it right. Show Sandy that he wasn’t some punk kid anymore.
“Good thing Santa works out, huh? Cole flexed dramatically after loading the back of his truck with big bags of dog food, a heavy crate, and several smaller bags filled with supplies he probably wouldn’t have thought of. Sandy couldn’t help laughing with him. They’d been shopping for almost two hours, and against Sandy’s better judgment she’d enjoyed every moment. He was easy to be with when he wasn’t plotting some practical joke against her. “Where would you like to eat dinner?”
All the easiness of being with Cole drained away in a second. “Oh, Cole that isn’t necessary. Just take me back to my car.”
“Come on, I need to thank you for helping me out with Hannah this morning, and then all this…” Cole waved his arm over the tailgate of his truck indicating the new pet supplies they’d just picked out.
“You don’t need to thank me Cole. And anyway you already made a donation and you are adopting Jingle Bells—that is more than enough.”
“Fine, I don’t need to take you to dinner, but I would still like to.” He leaned against the truck and crossed his arms over his chest daring her with his eyes to refuse.
“Thanks, but no thanks Cole.”
He took a moment and seemed to be considering her. “Is that Italian place still on Main Street? We’ll go there.” Cole stated as if he hadn’t heard her. Then he opened the passenger door for her and she was too dumbfounded to do anything other than climb in.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Sandy looked up from her fettuccini. “Why would you think that?”
Cole chuckled. “If I knew I would just apologize for whatever it was. But, I don’t know. All afternoon you were fine and now you have hardly looked up from your food.”
“I’m sorry. This whole day has been a little surreal for me.”
Cole smirked. “Is that a compliment? It didn’t sound like one.”
“It wasn’t not a compliment. But if someone had told me when I woke up this morning that I’d be eating dinner with Cole Pennington tonight I would probably have laughed in their face.”
“Well that sounds like not-a-compliment.” Cole put down his fork and braced his forearms on the edge of the table and trained his eyes on her. “Is there a reason you wouldn’t have wanted to be eating dinner with me?”
Sandy felt a little trapped. She didn’t really want to get tricked into admitting that she’d spent a good portion of the early morning reliving old memories of him. She didn’t need to be branded a stalker! “Well, mostly I guess it is just that as far as I knew you were on the other side of the country.”
Cole nodded, but Sandy could tell from his narrowed eyes that he didn’t buy that entirely. Why did she even care? She had no intention of getting involved with anyone—least of all with Cole Pennington. “Fair enough.” He said without moving his eyes from her face. “Hannah and I got back to town a couple of days ago. She’s getting older, and I didn’t like the idea of raising her in the city. I’ve just been offered a position in the science department at Franklin.”
“Franklin High School?” Sandy didn’t even try and hide her shock.
Cole didn’t look offended though. His eyes twinkled a little more and he chuckled. “Now, should I be insulted? I am a pretty good teacher.”
“No, not insulted. I just didn’t picture you growing up to be a teacher.”
“I like that.” Cole’s chuckle had turned into a face splitting grin. “I like that yo
u were thinking of me. Tell me, what did you picture me doing?”
“I don’t know. It was just a figure of speech. It isn’t like you’ve crossed my mind a whole lot.”
Cole was quiet for a minute while he took his time chewing a large bite of his pasta. Then he looked up. His eyes were softer and when he spoke his voice was low and husky. “That’s too bad, Sandy. You’ve been on my mind quite a few times over the years.”
“What happened to your wife?” Sandy blurted out her question. She’d meant to change the subject, but she should have gone for the weather or maybe sports.
Cole, understandably, looked surprised. “I’m not married.”
“Obviously.” Sandy shifted nervously in her chair. “Hannah mentioned that she wanted a new mommy. It’s none of my business—I was just wondering what happened.”
“She said that to you?”
“She said you were taking your time picking one out.”
Cole burst out laughing. He remembered telling her that. It had been a few months ago when she’d asked him why all the other kids at kindergarten had mommies picking them up. At the time he’d given her the line about picking just the right one to buy himself some time. He was happy with their family and he hadn’t given any real thought to getting married. Any female influence Hannah needed in her life she could get from his mother. Now, he was starting to think that maybe he should start shopping.
“I am in the market, now that you mention it. Know anyone that might be interested?”
Cole reached across the table and touched the tips of her fingers. She yanked her hand away as if he’d burned her. And maybe he had. She was certainly burning her way into him. Never had he felt so drawn to a woman. Not even when they were younger and she fascinated him. That 18 year old kid wasn’t capable of the kind of need Cole was feeling now. All afternoon he’d had to force himself to concentrate on what she was saying all the while fighting his urge to drag her into a dark corner somewhere and taste her pretty lips or bury his fingers in her hair or… well it was a struggle to say the least.
